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A good first step is to feel comfortable in any key (without music) on the neck. Be able to know - 'Ok I'm in G major, the 4th is C, which is right here.' This means when a key signature comes a long you instantly know where notes within the key signature fall on your guitar neck. When it gets tricky is with accidentals and key changes.
Originally Posted by pinbridge
Notated chords are so hard to read, I say get stuck into single line reading. Most situations, if the arranger knows what they are doing, the chords will simple be a chord symbol. Take a look at any Count Basie chart - do you think Freddie Green was reading all his awesome chords? In my opinion reading chords on guitar is more relevant to classical than jazz.2- I find chords to be the most challenging to decipher. How do you approach those?
You are on to something here. There is a BIG difference to sight reading and reading. Both are important and are related but require slightly different approaches. The best way to practice true sight reading is on a gig because you need that pressure. You can build a familiarity of note names, key signatures, accidentals at home or with a metronome but, I have found, the quickest way to improve reading is with other people.Actually, I really mean reading (with a little time to prepare, but not enough to write all sorts of reminders on the staff) more so than sight-reading.
To give you some background, my sight reading was really really bad. I managed to score a cruise ship gig and got better, really really quickly. I'm now confident turning up to a gig in nyc and giving a good shot.
Last thought: reading a chart is a skill in itself. Get fast at analysing the roadmap of a tune - repeats, codas, key changes. Find tricky passages and quickly find fingering for them.
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10-08-2015 01:52 AM
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Can anyone recommend any good sight reading exercises or maybe even a method book
Last edited by Comeau; 02-23-2016 at 07:13 PM.
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I've gotten a lot out of this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Music-Reading-.../dp/0793581885
I've worked out of it regularly for 15 minutes a day for the last year or so. I could not read very well before, and I can kind of read now.
Lots of people recommend the William Levitt book, Reading Studies for Guitar, but I found it too challenging to begin with. After working through the Oakes book I linked above, I'm getting more out of it.
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The tunes in this basic clarinet primer for kids is the foundation for all beginning reading musicians, regardless of instrument. The important thing is that they throw the rhythmic building blocks at you to learn to recognize, which is the hard part of reading.
Clarinet Primer Book - Mel Bay Publications, Inc. : Mel Bay
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If you can find it this is great.
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the best sight reading exercise is to read different material constantly. I would recommend using band in a box and generating solos and using that to practice your reading.
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I'm working my way through Leavitt (near the end of Vol 1 of the Method and working on Melodic Rhythms as well), and I feel like he made a big jump that I need more practice on. In the second half of Vol 1, he works through basic keys (C F G D A) in second position with about four pages of work in each key. After that slow progression, he jumps to third position and gives just a single half-page exercise in each of Bb Eb Ab Db, then moves on to a new position. I could definitely use more practice in those keys before moving on. Can anyone recommend a good book of reading studies/etudes that I could use to augment my practice on that?
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I dowloaded the tedesco book. Looks good. I like the exercises reading along one string as well in position. Simple idea, but never occurred to me.
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Yeah, the Oakes book from MI also has you reading along one string a bit. An eye opener, a little like Goodrick's unitar. Originally Posted by christianm77
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I have the tedesco book had it for years.Since the 80s.Crazy guy.Also Sal Salvadore sight reading among many others.I try to develop designer lessons for each individual students way of learning.I try to avoid "i like that guys approach better then yours" type situation.So comeau any one of or a combo of these and coming suggestions will do the job.Happy hunting and hope you find somng that suits you dendrites.Oh and guitar teachers are called self improvment specialist these days.think i will change my bus. card to MY NAME S.I.S.Have fun!!!!
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I heard from a friend that the Comprehensive Technique for Jazz Musicians by Bert Ligon, is supposed to be really good. I have it but I haven't gotten to study with it yet b/c I'm working on something else right now. Total pages is 323, covers a lot of material.
http://www.amazon.com/Comprehensive-.../dp/0634001760
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Berklee sight reading positions 1-7 Originally Posted by jtr
And 8-12 (two books)
Will sort that out.
http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Studie.../dp/0634013351
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I've found that an absolutely fantastic resource for technical exercise--scales, arpeggios, patterns, etc. A lifetime of useful work. Originally Posted by fathand
However, it wouldn't be my first choice for sight reading. Because most of the material is pattern based, it is different (and usually easier) than most other types of reading. And an awful lot of it is in C.
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I agree with J Zucker. I do not have BIAB yet, but I have used Sibelius G7, a now legacy "basic" Sibelius version, for many years. I have been a reader of notation since grade school in various choirs and studied classical guitar for four years from the age of eleven or twelve. So I have been reading notation for over fifty years at this point.
But I am of two minds about reading notation. As I like to do chord melody style solo guitar, I have created a library of nearly a hundred or more jazz standards. I enter notation usually with an inexpensive Yamaha keyboard synth via USB into the computer or utilizing the 'virtual' guitar fret board. First I generally create a 'lead sheet' with a melody staff and a guitar accompaniment staff plus lyrics and written chord designation above the melody staff. This type of approach I use for copying the music to use when recording as well as rehearsing over the midi audio files. The intent in this instance when recording is to have a "skeletal" and very simple lead sheet for clarity to use for improvising the performance in recording or other "live" situations. I go so far sometimes as to create a lead sheet version with just a melody staff, written chord designations "Cm7b5" type thing and in the guitar accompaniment just a bass line! Clarity and simplicity is the objective here.
But I also often create a much more detailed arrangement of the guitar staff part - a quite fleshed out version of the actual chord melody arrangement. Why? Is this anti-improvisation? No. I do it because there are times when I want to perform these tunes as guitar plus vocal taking the melody (most of the time) and other occasions when I just want a pure solo guitar instrumental version. Because chord melody nearly always articulates the melody as the top soprano or highest voicing, I want to rehearse this version in detail, not to memorize the arrangement like a classical piece, but to ingrain the voice leading and fret positions where the melody and harmony are most effectively situated. Because if I am singing the melody, the guitar part generally is to complement the melody (easier), while if playing just solo CM style guitar, it is crucial to articulate that melody properly and assuredly with confidence (harder).
Pardon me for the longwinded post, but I want to explain the 'two minded' approach. As for the benefits for reading notation generally, once you have created your arrangement (one 'simple' version and a second CM style), you can change keys with one click or two. This allows you to practice standards in any key you wish, which is very good for your reading. Secondly, you can alter the tempo to a slower pace for practicing or mute one of the staffs to practice just the melody or the accompaniment. And above all you are learning every day to read and write notation. Third, another important point for those who are not comfortable or fluent with reading is that if you learn songs that are very familiar to you in terms of melody and harmony, every time you practice with your library repertoire of standards, you are reinforcing your reading and playing skills simultaneously and effortlessly.
Many people want to start with other sources and that is fine. But my aim is above all to develop my repertoire as well as maintain and improve my reading skills. And you achieve both these goals with my method, certainly not unique. In this manner when you have to read notation in a group setting especially with songs you are familiar with, you have acquired the comfort of reading not only the notes but importantly the rhythmic aspects of notation. And by working with material you know, you improve constantly in terms of imprinting and becoming more fluent with notation.
Long winded. But I find this approach the most effective to maintain and improve notation skills, not to mention your guitar skills. I'm not trying to shove this down anyone's throat, but I will just say working with notation software has been an outstandingly effective method for my personal growth and I recommend it without reservation. You truly learn by doing.Last edited by targuit; 02-25-2016 at 09:53 AM.
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So anything will work to some level, eventually. But if your really after sight reading, like your posts said, bring able to perform a chart on the spot with out knowing it etc... You need to work on the individual elements of sight reading by themselves.
Rhythm, the actual notes and patterns and then all the other BS.... roadmaps, form, articulations and eventually understanding what the notation implies besides what's on the paper. And then also using the skills altogether... the performance of using all the individual skills. Reading music.
It's basically like anything... when you just work on reading music... your don't develop the individual skills. Lousy analogy could be like learning to read without knowing the letters, words etc...
Sight reading is basically being able to recognize patterns... (the music notated on the page), well enough to be able to be reading ahead of what your actually playing.
You recognize a rhythmic patterns as well as the melodic patterns.... not individual notes.
Generally the rhythms come first... and you get the target or more important notes first... and fill in the dots mechanically from recognizing scale or arpeggio patterns.
There are different approaches... but I sight read well, that's what I do....I'm not guessing what might work.
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Good comments, Reg! Couple of observations and questions.
I distinguish two general situations in recording or performing. One is playing a jazz standard you know very well, the second performing or recording music you are not familiar with.
I premise that I always "improvise" the live performance rather than play a rote arrangement identically each time. But, knowing the song well is a kind of 'arrangement' if only in that you feel comfortable with the melody and harmony already. Maybe just use the sheet music to keep track of verses and choruses or lyrics. A roadmap, so to speak. In this case I find myself reverting to a sparse lead sheet essentially even reduced to lyrics, melody and a bass line to imply the rest of a chord written above the melody as a "C7b5" style thing. Really reductionist, KISS approach. In other words I sort of use a kind of 'figured bass' approach to keep it simple.
The same thing can apply for playing CM style solo guitar, but for practicing I like to create a more detailed roadmap as I suggested above.
Do you have any particular thoughts or observations about those two different situations you must encounter or do you dispense with sheet music entirely when you perform songs you know very well?Last edited by targuit; 02-25-2016 at 11:54 AM.
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Wizard, what is your thinking on all this?
I certain don't wish to derail the thread in any way, but I think even for less skilled readers trying to improve that a "context oriented" approach helps imprint the 'rules of the game' faster than breaking down everything atomistically. Don't misunderstand - not saying that is 'wrong' or bad, just that I learn better in context. Like reading stuff I already know in a melodic and harmonic sense. Even when I took classical guitar lessons where notation reading begins on Day One, I felt it was context driven. I certainly agree that certain aspects can be benefit from specific focus, but if I already know a melody like Jobim's Girl From Ipanema, learning to read that melody and harmony as notation for a student would be easier and teaches you a lot about rhythm pattern recognition because you already know how to sing the melody. Just my take.
At this point I use a lot of shortcuts to reading. Like just reading the first note of each measure and 'reading' the architectural shape of the melody line rather than really every note. This with stuff I know, of course.Last edited by targuit; 02-25-2016 at 12:07 PM.
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Thanks everyone for all the advice!! I've found an old copy of the Tedesko book and ordered. I'm gonna work my way through it as well as other suggestions Such as reading new material. and I'll see how it goes.
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Tons of good stuff here already, but I'll just toss in The Rhythm Bible by Dan Fox, published Alfred. Great book to practice and internalize rhythmic patterns.
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I had another thought on this: although the Comprehensive Technique book might not be ideal for sight reading practice, I think Ligon's Connecting Chords with Linear Harmony would be great. You'd be reading great jazz vocabulary in lots of keys. Originally Posted by fathand
When I got the book, I wasn't enough of a good reader to make much use of the many hundreds of examples (though I got something from the main concept). I may revisit it now as sight reading practice.
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My reading ability is quite limited at this point. One tip I got was to write out all of the rhythmic possiblilites on blank staff paper. Start with quarter notes, half notes, dotted, ties, rests etc., then do the same with 8th notes. Getting to know and recognize the rhythms is half the battle.
I started on this, but didn't get too far yet. Also getting to recognize scalar runs, arpeggios should make sight reading a little easier. But then there's those odd intervals that don't fit into either.
Another problem, finding the best position(s) on the neck for the piece you're reading. I don't see how any guitarist can know that immediately when reading something new. That's a disadvantage to playing guitar in my view.
Flat or sharp keys, accidentals - another aspect to work on.
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Yea... There are different approaches to learning to play the instrument and basic musicianship in general. Most approach from just play and play etc... learn the tunes, generally because that's the only approach they know or can understand. Or even have access to.
We all have different goals or reason for playing etc...I've never wanted to spend all my time practicing. I enjoy performing not practicing. I just looked for the best approach with least amount of practice that worked for me.
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Did you do anything systematic re. positions etc, like working a certain position hard for a certain amount of time? Originally Posted by Reg
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Hey Matt... I haven't done anything for years.
But back in the 70's, early 70's I remember having trouble with the lower strings from 7th through 12 position... I played a simihollow back then... louder gigs more fusion BS, lots of long up tempo lines that cover lots of range, not the most musical music... but was cool at the time. I was still plating jazz rock BS and the strings didn't sound that bad. On jazz boxes... I tend to jump around to use the top three or four strings.
I don't really remember not being able to sight read... I always developed skills together... so I'm sure I would sight read in all three areas of the neck. I'm not really a fan of the playing in 1st through 5th fret areas. Don't like the sound... except for solo material etc... or Brazilian feels.
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Say, Reg, out of curiosity it would be interesting to read about how you got started in music as a kid. Did you take any lessons? Unless I misunderstood, you did go to Berklee or some music college level school, no? I for one would be interested to hear about how you ended up where you are. I guess we all start with the passion to learn how to play. If this is too off topic, maybe you could start a separate thread or if you want I'll start one about where we all discovered our passion for music.
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